the upside network

👋 Hey Product Hunt! This project began in 2017 when @ekhornung and I wanted to start a fund to invest in our friends’ startups. That sounded like a tall order at the time, so inspired by @jason’s book "Angel" we decided to start by interviewing Pre-Series A founders who weren’t based in Silicon Valley. We’ve told a lot of stories (we even produced a full-length documentary about the Columbus startup ecosystem), but we’ve barely scratched the surface. So today we’re announcing the launch of the upside network! We’re looking for local hosts and newsletter authors to partner with. We handle the upfront costs and backend operations to let our local creators focus on telling great stories. If that sounds like you, visit https://upside.fm/network/. We’d love to hear your questions and feedback below!

This project will be absolutely amazing for the startup ecosystem and providing tools for more creators to enter the space. More stories need to be shared, whether is funding announcements, bootstrapping journeys, exits, failures, wins, etc. For more stories to be shared, we all need more storytellers. Providing those storytellers a ready made toolbox and blueprint for them to succeed will be an absolute game changer. Exciting stuff!

@ekhornung @jayclouse Congratulations on the launch, and thanks for sharing it with our community. I'm sure wonderful makers on Product Hunt will resonate with the fact that talent and spirit to change the world is not geographically limited. I'm sure it's an uphill task for the founders outside of the comfort of the valley, but that is what truly differentiates them... the grit, the determination, and the 'never say die' spirit! I salute you, and the founders for sharing their inspirational stories with us all :) Wanted to know if you're also looking for local hosts and authors outside of US?

Hey everyone! @jayclouse and I have been talking about this day for a LONG time. We're so excited to finally have the upside network in a place where we were excited to share it with all of you. Jay and I like to ask the question: "What sucks..." In the localized startup media world, it sucks that the incentives, structure, business model, and operational know how to launch a local podcast mean that many fail or pod-fade. In the national startup media world, we realized within the first 50-100 episodes of upside that we could go BROAD but we couldn't go DEEP into startup communities with a single podcast. There is too much happening in each city. You don't hear about that local activity because the current structure of media isn't set up to deliver those stories locally or nationally. So, we developed a new model that took the best of the national model and merged it with the local model. Today, we call that the upside network! We've beta tested the network with our friends in Cleveland and Cincinnati and we're ready to scale this up. We're stoked to chat with you if you're a host, author, listener, sponsor, or fan! Leave us a comment.

This is great. I know a lot of people who would love this.

Eric and Jay are catalyzing startup communities by shining a spotlight on founders building great companies in cities with blooming but overlooked tech scenes. This network will help these communities bring out the 'upside' in themselves and each other - can't wait to see what happens once they roll out across the country.

Great episodes to help understand what is happening outside of Silicon Valley! Been listening since one of their first episodes 3 years ago.